


The Archangel Michael bio

by Shatterpath



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-17
Updated: 2012-04-17
Packaged: 2017-11-03 19:30:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/385042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shatterpath/pseuds/Shatterpath
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Events that shaped a life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Archangel Michael bio

King Charles I, Charlemagne as the world has come to remember him, was perhaps the greatest leader Europe has ever known. My family was never allowed to forget that, his imposing marble likeness looming over us all like a great and terrifying guardian angel. I am the latest in that line, having no siblings, and only idiot cousins to compete for prominence in my family's hierarchy. Despite my parents being complete unknowns and an utterly taboo subject.

Luckily for me, I hated it.

I was a wild child, barely able to stay within the confines of the roles ascribed to me. It was a stifling upbringing for a child, as my clan was so firmly mired in the past. It makes me smile humorlessly to remember the endless ritual and pomp I lived, slept, ate and breathed. Shocking that I wasn't dressed in pantaloons and voluminous skirts. The ridiculous, formal, frilly things I was subjected to was bad enough. You Americans cannot even imagine the rigid control that it had over our lives. There were little if any modern amenities, the castle was still half-lit by torches, there were no televisions, only two telephones that only the men used, and none of the children were allowed off of the property, except in the rarest of circumstances. There were several old cars, lovingly kept in mint condition, but they were kept in the old guard barracks near the main wall, away from we curious children.

I had many cousins, even as I had no actual siblings, and there were other children from the servants. We were raised in a strange pack environment, constantly in the spotlight gaze of our elders. The one good thing I can say for my bizarre childhood, was my education. I speak ten languages, and my grip of the academic is a skill you rarely see in this modern world. History, math, law; these are my fields, and I use them for innumerable tasks. But the most important lessons were passed on by my elders, for I avidly studied them. The political maneuvering within the clan, the verbal games of parry and thrust, they thrilled me. So I remained a good little girl, quiet, demure and observant, only speaking when spoken to, keeping my voice soft and girlish. While inside me, the power grew. Before my body even woke to adult needs, I had figured out the power of my charm and good looks.

The feral heartbeat pulsing beneath the genteel layers of society fascinated me long before I could understand what it meant.

When I was almost ten years old, I figured out how to break into the old carriage house, where I found the letters. Luckily, the grown-ups never noticed that they were missing. In those pages, I discovered the missing chapters of my history. My insane sire, locked up in an institution until he died after my conception, and the very distant relative in America that agreed to mother me for a reward that contained quite a few zeros.

Even for the insanity of my clan, this was a nightmare.

After assimilating just how ruthless the la Magne family truly could be, I bent my formidable brains and willpower to using this new information to escape.

Nearly two years passed. While my behavior on the surface did not change, inside I became even more focused and deadly and determined. Then I heard the name, purely by accident as the adults spoke. I'd grown so adept at my silence and obfuscation, that they forgot I was there sometimes.

Crazy Cecelia of the ostracized American branch of the weighty family tree.

Wonder what her destitute little clan did with the money?

Then they remembered I was there, I schooled my elation and revulsion and shock behind a mask of confusion. We have American relatives? How curious. That was all I would say, and returned to the book I was reading.

Or so they believed.

Some of the money I'd stolen from the uncles bought the favor of a dissatisfied servant, and the services of a private investigator, who delivered the long, long letter to my American relative.

Imagine my shock when that same Cecelia la Magne showed up at the ancestral complex in France. She was a beautiful woman in her late thirties, perhaps early forties, with a power about her that cowed the uncles.

To this day, I don't know what she said to grandfather, but after their meeting, I was bundled up with many of my things and sent off with Cecelia. On the plane ride back to New Orleans, I found out that she was actually my grandmother and her only daughter had mothered me. The daughter, her name was Rebecca, had agreed to sell herself as brood mare to the last of Charlemagne's male line, the clinically insane monster that had fathered me. She returned to the United States after going missing for an entire year, with a fortune in cash on hand to rebuild the family estates and fortunes.

Grand Dame told me that Rebecca died of a broken heart before an entire season passed. The idea still brings a strange ache to my chest at the mother I never knew.

All Grand Dame and I have are stories and photographs and a few treasured mementos.

I have always loved the history and ideals of the United States. The history of the country fascinated me, surrounded and oppressed as I was by a linage more weighty and ancient than most can contemplate.

Grand Dame, for she made me call her that from day one, immediately enrolled me in a very private, very exclusive, very disciplined boarding school in Massachusetts. It worked to minimize my overwhelming culture shock.

Oh, how I loved those halcyon days in the thick wilderness of snotty St Joseph's outside of Boston. While not entirely unlike my stuck-in-the-past upbringing, there was the modern world just outside the gates of the school. After some cajoling, a bit of threat and much greasing of palms, money was only a tool to me, I was allowed to go beyond the gates.

It was a mind-opening experience, to say the least.

Those new Harry Potter movies make me chuckle humorlessly. They remind me of my childhood, minus the cool magic of course.

And quickly, my pre-adolescent self began to awaken to new needs. Ones that I relished and looked for a way to explore them. Things went more easily for me because I had figured several things out when I was practically still in diapers.

Men were to be manipulated, controlled, carefully lorded over through their own ego and the patriarchal foundations of our post-Roman societies. They were no threat to my strength, my intelligence or my heart. Women on the other hand…

Women would be my downfall. I must be careful and heed the lessons of generations of careful breeding and the lessons taught to me in a childhood of ancient power and inbred madness.

I seduced my first teacher at thirteen. How I wish the woman hadn't been punished for my experimenting.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

So, where was a repressed predator supposed to go, once the drive of adulthood is upon her? Easy. The most controversial and shocking thing I could come up with, of course. There was one teacher, perhaps thirty years old, that had a bizarre lilt to her speech I now know was a Texan accent. How I lusted after her. I learned many lessons stalking and catching her, my reward was having her over her own desk, moaning and crying out as I learned even more skills in her mouth and skin and cunt. As thanks for giving into my strength and need, I was a good sovereign and gave my servant all the pleasures I could manage. Considering the dazed and panting state I left her in, sprawled back in her chair, her panties a souvenir in my pocket, I like to think she enjoyed herself as well.

It was a chance encounter with a friend's mother that focused my drive. Gerry Madison was a nice, quiet boy with impeccable manners that even KC would be proud of. He was my best friend, firmly under my control. The best part was… his mother was a Marine. Looking back now, I can see that I had a crush on her of adult proportions. Slim and level-eyed, the woman was disciplined, intimidating and yet strangely warm.

Obviously, that's where that particular fetish started.

The boarding school fed my voracious mind, and the diverse student body fed other hungers. I qualified for high school level classes by fourteen, moved to a new school across town, and graduated by sixteen.

Best of all, my high school had an extensive junior NROTC program that became a bastion of strength to me.

During this time, I visited Gerry as often as I could, keeping the boy under my spell. With him as willing partner, I learned many skills that would come in handy as a dominatrix. Hell, I can still clearly remember the sultry afternoon in '89 where I found out that he was as sexually aroused by the games as I was.

That first round of physical pleasure is a fond memory. My willing playmate, tied, blindfolded and gagged with his own clothes and bedding, while I took advantage of his very willing self. Virginity was over-rated anyhow.

His mother suspected something was going on, as Gerry would act differently when I was around, or there was an imminent visit, but she could never prove anything and I used the lessons of intimidation that I learned from observing her. Luckily, I was subtler than she could ever hope to be, and she really didn't clue in to the game I was playing with her little family.

Don't misunderstand me, I adored them both, envying the normality of their lives. But I had been raised to see the currents underneath, to the buried aspects of humanity that most truly hate to see. Taboos and the kinky fringe is where I felt the most at home, even at only fourteen. Fortunately, I could move amidst the rest of the sheep, carefully cloaking my wolf nature in their wool.

I deliberately avoided any 'unusual' relationships in school, determined that the military would find nothing out of the ordinary during their background check. At school, at church, at play with the other children my age, I was a model citizen, except for some innocent flirting and kisses.

Even as I continued to train Gerry in secret and subtly tease his sexy mother.

Graduation from high school passed in a blur to me, as I was already gearing up for college when most kids simply want their driver licenses. In only two years, I managed to obtain a coveted bachelor's degree in pre-law, and stay mostly sane. Very little aside from the intensity of school and ROTC distracted my single-mindedness. Thank god for Gerry to take the edge off, or I might have cracked under the pressure. In the middle of that last spring summer, I somehow scrounged up the time to race down to Washington DC, where I followed in the most traditional footsteps of the millions of immigrants that have come to these shores. I was never happier to give up the French half of my citizenship, thrilled to be truly American at last.

When I returned to school, I had a nasty, nasty shock.

The clan had sent the eldest cousin for me. For a moment, I stared at the grown Charles, shocked by the intensity of hatred I felt for him. Familiar condescension and superiority came off of him in waves, as he sneered that it was time to 'stop fooling around and return to his side'.

I took great pleasure in physically shoving him out the door with a rough kick in the ass and a very colorful diatribe to take back to the family I would never associate with again. For weeks, I was shaken, and was lucky to still keep the brutal school schedule that I had.

That summer, I let go only once.

At a wild post-graduate party, I let loose, taking great pleasures at whatever carnal delights that my classmates could offer. Frankly, I'm lucky to have not picked up a variety of STDs. Then I gathered up my things, discarding all that I couldn't carry, and headed for my final destination before signing my life away.

But, first, I had one more thing that I just had to get out of my system.

For three days I cased the Madison house, determined to corner my childhood fetish and take advantage of the fear and fascination I could remember in her eyes. Imagine the look on her face…

She had only known me as the long-time friend of her son that she had raised so carefully with only herself to rely on. It took all of my wiles to persuade her to let me into her home, and then into more intimate places. The fond memories of that afternoon still make me smile. She'd been so taken aback, and respectful, of the way I'd learned to carefully intimidate. All doubts were lost as I dropped to my knees and yanked her sweats and panties down, persuading her with my mouth. What can I say? I'm naughty.

With her sweet taste still musky in my mouth, I rented a car and drove to Annapolis to start the next phase of my future.

Mother and son both are trusted Swords to this day. I love my job.

When my decision as a young teen to become a Marine had not faded with time, Grand Dame had put me in touch with a senator friend of hers, who happily sponsored me to Annapolis, the strong heartbeat of the United States Navy. At Officer Command School, I learned side-by-side with all the other recruits determined to become officers in the Navy or Marines. I have to admit that I was seriously tempted by the former when I had to choose at the end of training. But my fetish love of the Marines won out. My brains and drive got me the posting I coveted within the Judge Advocate General corps, using my love of law for my fellow soldiers and sailors, and how the Department of the Navy interacted with the world.

I never tire of reminiscing about my initial training with the Department of the Navy, and later, with the United States Marine Corp. I had considered just enlisting as a grunt and going to good, old-fashioned boot camp, but the lure of power that comes with being an officer was too much. And, after all, a woman of my history and skills couldn't very well be some grunt in the trenches. Yes, this is the place where I roll my eyes. Some of my fondest memories come from those days of grueling physical, mental and social training. The stripping away of individuality, the rebuilding of our minds and spirits as a member of the Corps. And people wonder where some of my kinks come from…

There's a strange dichotomy between me and authority that I truly discovered during my military training. I love to wield power, that I had always known that. Imagine my surprise to find that I liked it to knuckle me under as well. It's contextual thing. I chaffed beneath the rigid control, even as I was constantly aroused and strangely comforted by it. Never let it be said that that Grace la Magne is not a woman of complicated desires.

One pair of instructors stands out in my memories. There was Captain Jansen, a great hulking, testosterone-laden he-man that I loathed as much as lusted after. He was a bastard to everyone and greatly feared by his underlings. To this day, I'm not sure it was the Neanderthal himself or the power he wielded that I was so horny for. Then, there was his boss. My panties still get wet when I reminisce about Lieutenant Colonel McCall. She was a flinty-eyed woman that ran the OCS compound like a true, old-fashioned dictator.

Something in my eyes must have given me away to her, for she set her guard dog, my nemesis Captain Jansen, to harass me every chance she got. Oh, the woman played the game like no one I'd met before or since.

Jansen finally caught me doing something naughty enough to merit more than scrubbing latrines or extra PT. I knew I should have avoided some of the more carnal offers from my classmates, but hey, I was young, healthy and horny. Bet poor Thayer got in a hell of a lot more trouble than I did, when Jansen caught us screwing behind the mess hall. In retrospect, I suppose I should thank those two useless men. I'd only been fucking Thayer because I was desperate and that made me stupid.

Jansen bellowed the fear of multiple gods into my lover of convenience and dragged me off by the scruff of my t-shirt to the Colonel. Years later, I can't remember exactly what was said, except that she dressed me down until I was cringing. No one had ever made me cringe before, and that was first time I felt the fearful euphoria of giving into another's strength.

Colonel McCall sensed something in me, as the dressing down suddenly took on an aspect that left my head spinning. Standing close enough to my back that I could feel her body heat, she hissed that she knew how to discipline me so that I would remember it. There were a slew of four-letter words in there that I didn't even hear.

But I sure as hell heard 'discipline'.

Assured of my compliance, and that the ensuing scene would never leave her office, I found myself bent over her desk and ravished senseless. Actually, ravished is too nice of a word. I was fucked like a cheap whore who would agree to do just about anything. Spanked, tied up, screwed back and front by both McCall and Jansen, I was left exhausted and limping where they dropped me in the brig to cover their tracks.

Now, in case there's ever any misunderstanding, I by no means disliked what they did to me. In fact, I had never been so fiercely horny in my life. I hadn't even cared that it was that asshole Captain Jansen reaming me several times, or spanking my like a naughty kid with those big gorilla hands. He was as much a nameless tool as I for the Colonel's pleasure.

It was an invaluable lesson into my particular brand of sexuality. Note that I was just another face to Jansen when we were among the others. He didn't single me out unless I deserved it. Nor did Colonel McCall.

But I was called into her office a total of four times for 'special attention'. Part of the fierce, illicit thrill was knowing just how much fucking trouble we would get in if caught. The second Jansen grabbed my collar and hauled me off, my heart would race and I would drip like a bitch in heat.

I didn't calm until they were done with me and I was locked away safely in the brig. I also slept like the dead those nights, the euphoria lasting for days, if not weeks.

The night before graduation, I was walking across the compound, my nose buried in a law book, when a semi-familiar hot stare made the hair on my neck stand up and I froze. Sidestepping out of pedestrian traffic, I pretended to be engrossed in the book even as my pores and pussy flooded. As predictable as the wildebeests cross the Mara River, there was a heavy hand and hot breath on my bowed neck.

"Colonel wants to see you," Jansen growled like a starving lion scenting prey, his breath steamy and reeking of cheap tobacco. "Get your ass in gear, troublemaker."

He shadowed my every step, looming behind me like a killer in slow-motion. Colonel McCall rated a small office/house just off the beaten path of the pedestrian traffic. I'd never been here before and real fear poured liquid down my spine. It hardly matter that I knew that if I freaked too bad the kink wouldn't come, I would be merely yelled at and sent away. There was too much for my superiors to lose if I were unsatisfied by the arrangement.

The little office was empty when I stepped in, and I took a stiffly formal parade rest stance before the immaculate desk. There was a 'snick' of a door being opened and savory dinner smells wafted in. Captain Jansen said quietly, "the cadet is here, ma'am."

"Come in and shut the door," Colonel McCall said back, her voice cool, and with another 'snick', I was alone.

So I waited.

And waited.

And waited.

It was worse than guard duty, with anticipation making me sweat and drip. But at least it was easy to stay awake…

The 'snick' nearly gave me a heart attack, my blood pressure spiking and adrenaline flushing into my system. "So, cadet," McCall purred. "Tomorrow you'll be out of my hair."

If at all possible, my posture drew up even more stiffly, my muscles complaining faintly. "Yes colonel."

With a shuffle of sound, the colonel came into my line of sight and sat regally at her desk and Jansen plopped a small bench down in front of the piece of furniture. Even in just the corner of my eye, I could see that he was already hard and mentally prepared to 'entertain' him yet again.

"Well then," she said conversationally. "I suppose we should send you off with a bang then, eh?"

"If it pleases you, colonel," I managed to say in a flat, respectful tone that only cracked a little at the end.

"You do understand that I've been lenient with you so far?"

She'd been lenient with me? What the hell else was there?

Ask a stupid question…

McCall ordered me to drop trou right there, and kneel on the bench with my knees spread as wide as I could. The heavy boots and bunched up cammies were as effective as any expensive or elaborate bondage, and a harsh command to keep my hands in the small of my back was even more effective. For the first time, I was treated with a true beating, her heavy leather belt tanning my ass until I was squalling for mercy. By the time Jansen got his last feel of me, I'd already come several times and hardly noticed him.

As he stepped away, I noticed the wet spot my panting had left on the immaculate surface of the colonel's desk. "Colonel McCall, ma'am?" I panted weakly.

"Yes?"

"Permission to clean your desk?"

After a moment, permission was granted and I moved my aching arms to unpin my long hair. It is my only true vanity, the feminine mass of chestnut-coffee waves I've had my whole life. The strands quickly mopped up the moisture, and I returned my hands to their place with a thank you to my tormentor.

I like to think that I earned McCall's next order for Jansen to clean me up. The bastard was far more talented with his tongue than I'd have given him credit for and I was once again shaking with climax. Happy fucking graduation to me!

But, one more incredibly important thing happened to me that night. Colonel McCall brusquely ordered me to button up, and in moments I was up to spec, despite my quivering muscles and burning ass. "Tomorrow, I want you to report to a colleague of mine for a special project, so to speak. At o-eighteen hundred you will be at 1825 Grand Street, New York, New York. And don't protest that you can't make that deadline, lead-foot."

I very nearly smiled at the almost friendly tease, but wisely swallowed the reaction. "Yes ma'am."

"Now get the hell out of here and get some sleep. Tomorrow's a big day."

"Yes ma'am. Thank you, ma'am."

Little could I know what awaited me in New York…

 

Meeting KC was a major shift for me. Until her, I thought that the uniform would have to suffice to keep my most dangerous impulses reined in by rigid rules and conduct. Imagine my shock in finding an established fetish community, some of which lived out extreme sexuality day in and day out.

It was the first place that I truly felt completely at home.

In clipped, businesslike formality, KC put me on my knees and put me through my paces. Beaten, fondled, fucked until hoarse, I surprised even myself with what I could take, and just how aroused I could truly get. After that first interview, and the rest of my three day leave, I was invited to join what was loosely the House of Spades.

There were still classes and training I required as a budding JAG officer and, luckily for me, New York City wasn't an impossible commute from Marine Corps University at Quantico and her attending colleges. Most of my studying and done on the trains that led me on my path from Washington DC through Baltimore, Wilmington, Philly, Trenton, Edison to the shining star of the City That Never Sleeps and back again. I think I still have the call outs of every station memorized. It was just me and a back-aching pile of books and papers and a portable CD player to block out the rest of the world. In New York, beneath the watchful eye of KC and a few select others, I learned what would become the bread and butter of my real life once the thrill of the Corps became my past.

There is an art to the kink I was taught. Delicate and cerebral and complicated, I ate it up like the starved neophyte I was and it didn't matter if I was the tormentor or the one on her knees. Quickly though, it became apparent that my inherent predator nature more often kept me on the Toppy end of the spectrum. My scattered days off during that halcyon half year where the seasons swung from summer to winter, I spent my handful of longer periods free of the Corps and law school in the sister cities of Chicago, Las Vegas and Los Angeles, since the Red Queen had yet to relocate to San Francisco.

Oh, the things I learned in that intense period of my life! They honed me like a diamond in the hands of master carvers, each polishing different facets. That was also when I made lifelong friends in Tiny, Jane, Mel, Dace, Tessa and Karen, people I still treasure to this day. Ironically, I spent the most time with Dace, as she had spent my first three months with KC and the Spades at my side before continuing her training in Las Vegas with the Hearts. Certainly I had more in common with the other young women's energy and Tiny's past as a military man and a native of the lands of Grand Dame, but I knew Dace the best by proximity and the lovely dynamic that comes from opposites interacting.

They all helped mold me and I affected them in turn.

In December, deep in the winter cold in the city that has become my home, a great party was thrown that we've never really rivaled in all the time since. The loose identities that had started out almost as an affectionate joke of utilizing the deck of cards became official in a wild blowout that lasted several days. It was my graduation from a 'boot camp' of a different sort, where I had honed the love of manipulation body and mind to extreme heights of satisfaction. Oh, I hadn't mastered it, I never will really, as it is a hands-on skill that must be re-mastered with every body that trusts me with her care.

The pinnacle of my inception to the fold was Sylvia's trust with her beloved Dace, vulnerable and howling as my entire hand was taken in by her tight body. One hell of a graduation party for both of us! Just weeks later I shipped out to Hong Kong to truly become the Marine and lawyer I had studied so hard to be. With the queen spider-like connections I really barely comprehended at the time, KC assured my posting to that bustling and vibrant city of the exotic east. Despite missing New York, I needed the years away to learn the other aspects of being KC protégé and my own woman. There I honed innumerable skills ranging from the filthy alleyways and busy markets to the dim courtrooms and rowdy military presence. Hong Kong was and is a crossroads of every culture on earth and my closest companion is proof of that. Gabriel Grayson and I met through the uniforms we once wore. Me as the cool and aloof US Marine, JAG corps and Gabe as the loose and happy Royal Navy Auxiliary officer.

If you can believe the cheese factor of it all, he offered to buy me a drink. Having stared down a thousand just like him, I was surprised to see something different in the laughing blue eyes as he stood beside me. There was no carnal interest, just curiosity at what and who I was. And, to my astonishment, I let him! That night we closed the bar down, chatting about anything and everything. He even ambled along beside me as I returned to my apartment, waving a lazy farewell and vanishing into the night.

We were nearly inseparable from that moment on. Something about our very oppositeness has been the glue to our unshakable partnership and he was the first man I ever considered a real brother to me. A formidable force from the start, we became downright deadly in our fields. There was no dark corner of Hong Kong that we didn't know about and couldn't somehow exploit and our contacts spread around the world. Quickly, I grew to trust and subtly adore Gabe's best mates from back in London, who wore the same uniform he did. As opposite as Gabe and myself, is Ben Tate and Ian Andrews. Soulmates in every sense of the word, they became like extra limbs and senses to me, invaluable from the start.

We four are still the backbone of the House of Spades and the core of the Swords, our greatest legacy. It was also where the nickname stuck. Oh, Gabe had joked for ages about me being the dangerous avenging angel to his sunnier nature, mockingly calling me the Archangel Michael. When Ben and Ian took on the monikers of Uriel and Rafael, I stopped fighting destiny and took on the name that finally gave me separation from my past and let me fully embrace my future.

In time, I grew weary of the Marines and opted to not continue with the Corps after eight years of loyal service. It was time for me to return to New York and continue with what I knew was my true future. To my relief and gratitude, the boys came along to be the core of my power base in the Spades. We built the Swords from the ground up, carefully recruiting those who were dangerous, completely trustworthy and utterly discrete. From the start we hired ourselves out as bodyguards to the rich and idle, avoiding the limelight of the famous almost entirely. There are grandstanding bodyguards who can keep that niche, thank you very much.

During this period of growth, I had become the right hand of the Queen herself, KC. Little by little; I was brought in to her most cherished and shadowy plots and introduced to her most powerful of clients and contacts. From organized crime to the future President of the United States to multi-billionaire CEOs to every facet of public service, we had them all.

Gradually, I was becoming the King to her Queen.

I was also KC's gofer, not that I was very often rankled at the post. It was how I learned the ropes after all. As her most powerful deployable tool, I commanded the respect and power that is such a part of me. That's how I came to be back in Hong Kong in the spring of '95, where Gabe coaxed Leslie and Sangria away from the self-destruction they were destined for on those mean streets. At first I resented the urchins and the changes they wrought on my structured world, but I needed them and the sense of family they deepened. Oh, they have grown to be more Gabe's then mine, they taught me more then they will ever know. They were Gabe's fault of course, as the man is damnably good at anticipating what I need to grow and stay sane.

When Gabe was attacked and nearly killed a year and a half later, my world almost unraveled. That the incident brought Jo into my life is an irony that never ceases to make me smirk. She and Olivia were beat cops and fought off the skinheads that decided they didn't like Gabe's kind.

When that case happened months later, where Jo very nearly lost herself to the darkness she battled on the streets every day, it was the catalyst to us. How I needed her and wanted her and had fallen hopelessly for her. I was so wrapped up in her and my busy life in New York and abroad, that I never saw it coming.

Gradually, with stuttered, infinitesimal steps, the Suits drifted apart. The final straw was Dace's dramatic exit from Sylvia's life and the rest of us found ourselves in a horrible and awkward position. We had all drifted so far apart that we felt as though we could do nothing. And that made the split deeper and all the more painful.

It was a long three years that we were merely the House of Spades. It was a lonely existence without the sprawling connections of friends and clients and contacts that had sustained us for so long. Oh, we did well for ourselves on the east coast, but our lives were less rich and rewarding.

And then Dace, the catalyst for the breakup, became the catalyst to bring us together once more. The woman always did have a flair for the dramatic. In her return, she became the person I remembered from all those years ago and that helped heal us all.

The rest, as the saying goes, is history.


End file.
